A CLASH of ideas took place after a UKIP candidate made a rock star-style entrance to launch his campaign as an MEP for the south west.

Carl Benjamin – known by his online alias Sargon of Akkad – who faced controversy last week over a tweet to a Labour MP that he “wouldn’t even rape her”, arrived to cheers of support in town yesterday.

But he met a wall of anti-fascists who fiercely challenged the hopeful and his supporters on the issue of freedom of speech and the now infamous tweet to Labour MP Jess Phillips in 2016.

Michelle Marsiglia came to protest against what she said was the use of rhetoric at women.

She said: “As a feminist, what Carl said in that tweet, I found that disgusting. I’m also here because of Carl’s view that we could never eradicate rape because it’s part of the human condition, which is a pretty cynical way of putting it.”